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Poems

Judging Judges

There has been much written about the quality of
judging in the dog press recently and even more spoken about round
the shows. Although I do think the quality of judging certainly does
not "Droppeth from heaven," (like mercy) it wasn't ever
perfect or even near!

A fact of which I was reminded when clearing out the
back cupboard and found a lifetime of doggy memorabilia including
some of my scribblings.

I found the following untitled poem which was penned in the early
1970's.

I've seen a judge,
Ah, such a judge,
Reviled ere I saw him.
His reputation came before,
And naught good did it for him.
That judge I saw
Had knowledge poor,
Save that he knew of faces;
Incompetence he doth reveal
By every dog he places.
That judge, alas is not unique,
Treading the footprints of his clique,
His like do follow after;
But the plums they pull are bitter ones
And bring forth bitter laughter.

It is maddening I cannot for the life of me remember
about whom it was composed. Maybe it's just as well, because I can
share it with you with easy conscience.

The exhibitors obviously had their moments too. Of
the same era I penned this limerick---

A blond buxom wench name of ....................
At Bath nigh pushed me off the sidelines,
Next time I'll commit a sin
As I'll bring a big pin
And stick it----
Right into her bylines!

I've removed the name although the perpetrator's
long gone. I've not seen or heard of her in 30 years.

Obviously my sense of the ridiculous had not been
totally obliterated by such traumas as the aforementioned incidents
because tucked in with them was another scrap on which was scrawled
in red ink:

I met a monster last Wednesday,
And he was Oh so charming.
He was weary, he said, and underfed,
But his manner was so disarming.
He was 90 miles long
And 20 miles wide,
With a mouth as big as Yarmouth,
He'd nowhere, he said, to lay his head,
And he hadn't got any pyjamas.
"Though I'm 90 miles long
And 20 miles wide,
With a mouth as big as Yarmouth,
Nobody will play
Or else come to stay,
For I haven't got any pyjamas".

As a total admirer and devotee of the allegory*,
as a means of getting across a message in a palatable form, it was
obviously penned as a safety valve to relieve some frustration
whether of person doggy or not, I know not, and don't care now.
Perhaps it would help if in some of the bitter rivalry and sour
things said in the cut and thrust of competition the aggrieved
person lifted pen and scrap of paper and scribbled a jingle which
could be thrown away having done it’s job by relieving
tension - or like my three offerings be found thirty years later
to amuse.

* Oxford definition of allegory: (1) story,
play, poem, picture etc. in which the meaning or message is
represented symbolically; (2) the use of such symbols; (3) a symbol
(from the Greek allegoria)